The two don’t look alike and aren’t related, but they like to share things as all good brothers do.

On Tuesday, Costea shared the ball with Kolzow, and Kolzow shared the credit with Costea after they combined to score the Wildcats’ final goal in a 3-1 DuPage Valley Conference win over Wheaton North.

“He did good work on the wing and then did what coach (Arnoldo Gonzalez) tells us to do,” Kolzow said. “He passed it in like a true brother, and he just found me up top.”

The play began with Costea fending off a determined challenge from Wheaton North’s Joseph Simon in the right corner. The junior got loose and crossed to Kolzow at the top of the box.

Kolzow’s one-timer from 18 yards out got past the fingers of diving Wheaton North goalkeeper Harrison Thompson and rolled inside the left post with 9:14 remaining in the second half, giving the Wildcats (9-5-3, 4-1-1) a 3-0 lead.

It was the second goal of the game and sixth of the year for Kolzow, a senior midfielder who earned Chicagoland Soccer Man of the Match honors.

“I saw Calum (Nettleton) and Josh in the box, but I saw there was a defender coming toward Calum and Josh had a lot of space in front of him,” Costea said. “So I decided to play it to Josh, and it worked out; he finished it.”

With that, the Wildcats, who sit second in the DuPage Valley Conference standings, finished whatever slim hopes the visiting Falcons had of mounting a comeback.

Senior forward Aniel Patel tallied his third goal of the season with four seconds remaining to avert the shutout, but Wheaton North (1-12-2, 0-6-0) lost for the sixth-straight match.

Of the Falcons’ 12 losses, eight have been one-goal decision and three were two-goal games.

“It’s just we’re not able to get the goals or stop the goals to get the win. It bites us in the face very time.”

You could call the Falcons the best unlucky team in the state. They have no glaring weaknesses, but that doesn't get you much in the ever-tough DuPage Valley Conference.

Wheaton North has been shut out only twice, one of which was a 0-0 draw with York, and in six of the losses has allowed two goals or fewer. They led against highly regarded Naperville North, but lost a 3-2 decision Sept. 20.

“I don’t really know what it is,” Patel said. “They’re all close games.

“We just can’t complete the game. There’s chunks of the game that we’re just not playing well, and that’s when they score.”

Indeed, that’s what happened in this one. The Falcons left Kolzow open twice and he made them pay both times.

The first came at the 20:26 mark of the first half when defender Edon Kosova launched a throw-in from 30 yards all the way to the 6, where Kolzow volleyed it in with his right foot to open the scoring.

“It was a sloppy play, really,” Kolzow said. “It was a throw-in that nobody got a head on and then nobody was around me.

“I thought pass, but then I realized I was right before the goal, so I just shot it. I was like, ‘That was way too easy.’”

The absence of center-backs Michael Pfaff and Carlos Saavedra, both of whom are out with concussions, didn’t make life easy for Wheaton North’s defense or goalkeeper Harrison Thompson, who made three saves and several other difficult plays to keep his team in it.

Neuqua Valley started slowly and held only a 4-3 shot advantage at intermission, though the Wildcats missed another golden chance when freshman Amish Gupta snuck into the 6 alone but volleyed Kolzow’s header over the crossbar.

The second half began with the Wildcats putting pressure on the Falcons from the start. They forced a corner-kick just 45 seconds in, with Costea heading Nettleton’s serve over the pipe. Five minutes later, Thompson came out to cut off another corner.

But Neuqua Valley increased the lead to 2-0 with 31:39 to go. Ryan Carlin received the ball at the top of the box and sent a pass into the right side of the box to Billy Heniades in space. The speedy junior beat Thompson to the far post with a 10-yard shot.

With Kolzow and Nettleton working tirelessly in the middle, the Wildcats slowly ground down the Falcons’ defense, which resulted in some opportunities for Costea, who got a shot past Thompson with 28:20 to go, only to see defender Jake Mendez clear it off the line.

Six minutes after that, Emerson Beinhauer rolled a cross in front to Costea, whose one-timer rolled inches wide of the left post. A minute later, a drive by Nettleton was deflected by Thompson into the right post.

The Wildcats wound up outshooting the Falcons 14-6 and the linchpin of the attack was Kolzow.

“He’s a really technical player but the no. 1 thing is his work ethic,” Costea said. “He works harder than anybody on the field.

“Even against the most hard-working teams, he’s usually the most hard-working kid on the field.”

Kolzow, a co-captain along with Nettleton and goalkeeper Jonathan Kesler, feels he can play even better.

“I’m trying my best,” Kolzow said. “I’m working as hard as I can.

“Technically, I think I’ve sort of been a little off, but I try to make up for that with my work ethic.”

The Falcons have been working too, but don't haven't gotten the the results they want.

“The guys are frustrated,” Wheaton North coach Rob Stassen said. “I don’t think any of us have been in this situation where we’re 1-12-2.

“That’s a season you want to forget pretty quickly, but the first 13 games was not a 1-10-2 season. We were in every game, we were, I would say playing with, if not above (teams), but we couldn’t get the job done.

“Today I think the frustration got to us, injuries got to us, the light bench got to us.

“There was a lot of people playing frustrated. You could tell we weren't talking, we weren’t passing, we weren’t moving and our game is to move the ball.”

Even so, the Falcons had a few chances. They forced Neuqua Valley starting goalie Brandon Hartsock to make three saves in the first half, all within a two-minute span.A long goal-kick led to Jack Prendiville driving into the left side of the box, but Hartsock made a diving stop on the ensuing 12-yard shot with 7:04 to go.

Just 44 seconds later, Simon’s pass sprung Prendiville loose in the box again, but Hartsock charged off his line to smother it.

Less than a minute later, Prendiville made a nice lead pass to Patel, whose shot was deflected by Hartsock before being cleared by defender Spencer Wiese.

Kesler, who took over at halftime, didn’t make an official save but twice came out to snag dangerous balls before Prendiville could get to them. He also took a ball away from Patel with 3:30 to go before Patel finally broke through just before the final horn.

It was the second time this season Patel has scored right before the end of a half or game, which took a little bit of the sting out of the loss.

“I had foreseen us about .500, hopefully above .500 with the competition that we play,” Stassen said. “I did not expect us to be a one-win team.

“But it’s not so much go back to the drawing board because we’ve got the talent, we’ve got the skill, we’ve got the potential. It’s now trying to get teenage minds back onto being positive.”

Patel, for one, is trying to remain positive and believes the Falcons can pull an upset in the playoffs, which begin in 10 days.

“(In) a week and a half everyone is 0-0 and the season starts again,” Stassen said. “That’s the joys of this game compared to some other sports, where not everyone gets a ticket to the dance.”

For inspiration, the Falcons could look to the Wildcats, who bounced back in impressive fashion after their 6-game unbeaten streak was snapped in a 2-0 loss to Addison Trail, the ninth-ranked team in the Chicagoland Soccer Top 25, on Saturday.

“We’ve been playing generally good soccer,” Kolzow said. “Addison Trail was a bad game, but we were missing a lot of key players, and we just didn’t have it that day. But we’ve been working harder in practice, and it’s been showing in games.”

The Wildcats played without Nettleton, Kosova, midfielder Michael Hammond and defender Daniel Laverde against Addison Trail.

“I feel like if we had those players against Addison Trail we would have beaten them,” Costea said. “Even with all the injuries we still managed to keep possession at times and generate a few chances.”